Road safety starts with you

31 December 2011 - 02:19 By Sunday Times Editorial
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Sunday Times Editorial: TODAY a two-year-old child woke up wearing a nappy and plaster casts on his broken legs and arm. Yofezwa Sobede's mother and sister will never be there to comfort the bruised and bewildered boy.

Ambulance: File picture
Ambulance: File picture
Image: Thembinkosi Dwayisa

They are dead - along with over 1100 other mothers, fathers, daughters, sons and grandparents who perished violently on our roads in the past 30 days.

Yofezwa miraculously survived a taxi crash that extinguished 30 lives in Harrismith.

When will the carnage end? The orgy of death and destruction over the festive season is but part of an ongoing national tragedy. Every day 40 people, on average, die on our roads. That's over 1100 a month, as many as 14 000 in a year, according to Transport Minister Sbu Ndebele.

"The question every South African must ask is: who is it going to be this month ... who among you are ready to be among the over 1100 people who will definitely be killed on our roads over the next month and the following month, and the month thereafter?" Ndebele asked in January after announcing that more than 1200 people died during the festive season in 2010.

Are we doing enough? Clearly not. The government's Arrive Alive campaign, launched in 1997 under the then transport minister Mac Maharaj, promised severe consequences for traffic offenders. The campaign aimed to reduce road fatalities by 10% by 2000. A decade later, the toll is just as high.

The government must take a firmer stand. We need to see them name and shame the offenders; we need to see a steady increase in conviction rates for drunk driving; we need them to suspend licences and simply get more police on our roads.

Coupled with firmer action by the government is the unavoidable reality that we must all take responsibility for our behaviour on the road. Too many road fatalities are the result of reckless drivers who ignore the country's traffic rules.

Stop for a moment and think about little Yofezwa's future before you hit the road tonight.

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